Pilaster

Rules that use the word

Step the wall forward to the centre. Build up a façade in layers: let the wall advance in stages towards the central bay, double the pilasters or columns as it advances, and break the entablature forward over every support.

The giant order. To unify a façade of two or more storeys, run a single order of pilasters or columns through all of them, from the base to the main cornice.

Let the roofline follow the vaults. Divide each wall into bays with pilaster strips and end each bay in a semicircular gable, the zakomara, that follows the curve of the barrel vault behind it; shape the roof to the gables.

The column must stand free. Let columns stand free, round and upright, carrying a straight entablature directly; do not engage them in walls, replace them with pilasters, or set them on pedestals.

The arch framed by an order. Set arches on piers and frame each bay with an engaged column or pilaster carrying a continuous entablature, so that the arch does the work and the order gives the measure.

Break a corridor into bays. Keep a corridor’s height to no more than one and a half times its width, and divide its length into bays about as long as it is wide, marked by pilasters and by the divisions of the ceiling or vault.

Where it appears in the book

In the chapters The Composite Order, Columns in Company, Byzantium and the Early Church, Romanesque and Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque, Enlightenment and Revival.

A feature of Hindu Temple: Dravida (South Indian), Russian, Romanesque, Baroque architecture.

Nearby in the glossary

Perron · Piano nobile · Picturesque · Pietra dura · Pilotis · Pinnacle · Pishtaq · Pitch